FOURTH AMENDMENT

Truth to tell, the drug warrior politicians, officials, media and civilians
(*secretly*) don't list victory as an objective in their expensive and
oppressive trillion-dollar war. When they do spout their "zero
tolerance/total victory" rhetoric, how many of your readers actually
believe them? How many actually believe that this year's
multi-billion-dollar drug war budget will be the one that will achieve
total victory after decades of billion-dollar budgets that have totally failed?

Just remember that the drug czars' jobs depend on the perpetual prosecution
of, but NEVER a victory in, the drug war. Also, remember that the
politicians depend on the drug war and its rhetoric to scare up votes (by
scaring voters). The politicians also rely on the drug war to sustain their
constituent industries that depend on the economics of prohibition in order
to make generous profits and campaign contributions that keep the drug
warrior politicians in power and, therefore, keep themselves in business.

Remember what H.L. Mencken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to
keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by
menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party
line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and
military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the "drug
treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians
themselves, et al., can't live without the budget justification, not to
mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits
that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies and
perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms
and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the
Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Myron Von Hollingsworth